I’ve been fiddling with making bootable flash drives lately, via UBCD4Win for the most part. It’s actually come in handy a few times in the last month alone and the new v3.50 just cane out today! In the course of this I’ve learned a couple of useful things that might be worthwhile to others working on this.
Fun with bootable flash drives!
Apr 21st, 2009 by Marty
Windows Defender apparent false alarm (Win32/PossibleHostsFileHijack)
Mar 10th, 2009 by Marty
I got an alarming popup from Windows Defender tonight: it had detected Win32/PossibleHostsFileHijack in the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts file. That’s pretty worrisome and unexpected! I looked at the file but it seemed uninteresting. The only non-comment entries were:
127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost
I made a backup of the file, then I let Defender “clean” it. OK… it only removed the 127.0.0.1 line (in red above). Weird: that’s a pretty standard setting and it doesn’t seem like it should be going anywhere.
I searched around for this and found this thread on the matter. I then used Windows update to get the latest version of the Defender database (it was last checked about 18 hours ago) and reverted the “fix” Defender had made (in Vista you must edit the hosts file with an editor running in Admin mode… as always be careful!) Sure enough, it found and installed a newer version and a re-scan of the hosts file showed… no problems whatsoever. Apparently one of Monday’s Defender definition updates might have had a bug in it.
Note: This is NOT to imply this is always a false alarm! But if the only line that was removed is the standard localhost address as above, update Defender and re-scan. This “problem” may not be a problem after all.
Now, I wonder how many people screwed up their hosts file today by letting this rather ubiquitous setting get removed? I can imagine there are some apps that’ll be unhappy not to find a localhost route. If this post helped you avoid some fun config headaches later please drop a quick comment.
Update: more info at this site about this issue.
Vista SP1, WMP11 and Netflix - a solution
Dec 21st, 2008 by Marty
I recently upgraded to Windows Vista Business (SP1) from WinXP Pro. It went relatively well but I was annoyed today when any attempt to use Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” feature from IE 7 caused it to crash! (the “Indiv01.key” error).
I did some searching… turns out there are lots of complaints out there about this sort of issue, but almost nobody posted the correct way to fix it when Vista SP1 and WMP11 are involved. Most solutions revolved around WMP10 or earlier. The problem is, for some bizarre reason you can’t manage your licenses in WMP11 (there is no menu item for it and apparently all backup/restore functionality is gone!) Why? I have no idea. Glad I don’t depend on it for anything else!
I uninstalled and reinstalled Netflix… didn’t help. Lots of suggestions out there to downgrade WMP11 to 10 or such, but those are fraught with caveats. Reinstall Vista? Right! When my furnace won’t work I don’t repaint the living room and redecorate the bedrooms… why should one rebuild the whole system for an isolated failure? Besides, apparently that doesn’t help either.
Finally, I stumbled across a useful answer! Close IE and run the following command. CAVEAT: supposedly it resets ALL your DRM license info… beware! That wasn’t a concern for me (I’m wary of buying any DRM-wrapped media that could evaporate on a whim) but it could be an issue for you. The command is:
C:\Program Files\Netflix\Netflix Movie Viewer\ResetDRM.exe
After a couple of warning windows (read them carefully!) it completed. I reopened IE, clicked play on a Netflix movie and instead of crashing it notified me it needed to update something in WMP (as it had done long ago in XP). I let it, and after that it works like a charm!
Well, almost… looks like it’ll complain about getting a license every time you use it (because of IE’s “protected mode”? I dunno but I don’t feel safe to disable it). It seems to work after a prompt, but it makes me think it’ll eventually fail again.
Was all this work worth it though? We’ll see… I don’t trust that it’ll be reliable and if it wasn’t free as part of my Netflix membership I would be very hesitant to use this at all - especially when such DRM “rights” could suddenly disappear tomorrow or, as we see here, every time you use it. DRM is nothing but a nightmare and apparently it’s only getting worse. I’d go to Blu-Ray but I don’t want any “Surprise! DRM doesn’t like your big new monitor!” problems (also reported, which HDCP compatibility supposedly helps but it’s a “gotcha!” I don’t care to risk right now).
References:
Blog #2: The Quickening
Oct 7th, 2007 by Marty
Ok, not-so-quick considering the time since I wrote the last one.
What all does one write on a blog that’s purposely sanitized so it won’t offend past, present or future employers? Something intended to be neutral and unassuming? Frankly not a heck of a lot.
*Sigh*
Why is a mouse when it spins?
Apr 5th, 2007 by Marty
Hmm… I got my domain here about 8 years ago and as far as web things go I’ve not done a thing with it. I wonder if there’s some sort of award for having the oldest “Under Construction” page? 
-
About
Martin Falatic’s Techno Blog
Technobabble
There are 5 Posts and 9 Comments so far. -
Archives
- April 2009 (1)
- March 2009 (1)
- December 2008 (1)
- October 2007 (1)
- April 2007 (1)
-
Categories
- General (3)
- Uncategorized (2)
-
Tags
Defender DRM false positive flash drives GParted Netflix removable bit Super Grub UAC UBCD4Win Ubuntu Vista Vista SP1 Watch Instantly Win32/PossibleHostsFileHijack WMP11
-
Pages
-
Meta